


Lavender

by BeaRyan



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, F/M, Fluff, Fox gets a backstory, never dare me to crackship, reluctant blind date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-16 22:58:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3505919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeaRyan/pseuds/BeaRyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mango-Llama made a list of what she thought were highly unrealistic crackships.  I can't be trusted with that sort of inspiration.  Lincoln and Octavia try to set up Fox and Nyko.  Neither of them is thrilled about it at first.  I kept them as in character as I could, but as of this moment (post 2x16) we don't know much about either of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lavender

**Author's Note:**

> I thought I remembered Nyko yelling at Finn "You killed my son" when they were de-Reapering Lincoln. If that's wrong, whoops. I just gave Nyko a son.

Nyko froze as he caught the first glimpse of the woman with Octavia. "She's a child, Lincoln!" 

"She's the same age you were when you married."

"Then she's the age my son was when he died." His wife had been gone for years now; Nyko could bear the thought of other women. Artigas, though, had been gone only three moon cycles. When he was alive this girl, Fox, wouldn't have been his type, too thin, too pale, too gentle with the flowers she leaned over to smell without touching. Now no girls were his type. 

"Every time he took a walk with girl you were worried he'd make you a grandfather. If she's his age, she's old enough." Lincoln left the real issue alone. He would have helped if he could, but there were some pains only time could heal. Distraction could make the time pass more quickly. "You wanted to meet more Sky People. She wants to learn about herbs."

Nyko nodded. He could teach herbs. This wasn't a date. This was an intern. Fine then. The Sky People needed to know what he knew if they were going to survive here once the medicines they'd brought with them ran out. There was no reason for this to be awkward. 

Octavia heard their approach, but Fox didn't. They left the cover of the woods with light steps out of habit and were only a few feet away when she finally looked up. Fox glanced at the two men who towered over her in age, height, and weight and turned wide-eyed to Octavia who struggled against a grin. 

"That's chamomile," Lincoln said, gesturing towards the small white flowers Fox hovered near. "For sleep, right Nyko?" 

"It's a catch all. Chamomile tonic for whatever ails you. Maybe it works. Maybe it's a placebo." 

Too brightly and with a smile too wide Fox offered, "That's why I was in jail!" 

"You went to jail for chamomile?" Nyko asked. 

"No. Oh, God." She turned red-faced to Octavia, who shrugged. 

"I don't know this story."

"My mother sold medicines on the Ark. Not the stolen kind, the homemade kind. Sometimes they made people feel better, but it still wasn't allowed. They floated her and sent me to the SkyBox." 

"Floated is killed?" Nyko asked. 

Fox nodded. 

"For making people feel better?" 

Again Fox nodded. 

"I don't understand your people." 

"She wasn't a doctor. She wasn't allowed to do that. I wasn't supposed to help." 

Nyko looked across the field where they'd met the girls, not really seeing it but instead seeking meaning amid chaos. The healer before him had begun moving plants here and he'd followed suit. It was a good area for gathering herbs now. He was almost gardening, not his specialty area, but it helped the people of his village and no one had ever objected. His people were practical, sometimes brutally so, but taking the life of someone who tried to help seemed wasteful and incomprehensibly stupid. 

He said, "I'll used a knife today to cut the herbs. If I cut myself, will you help me stop the bleeding?" 

"Yes," Fox answered. 

"Is that allowed? You aren't a doctor."

Fox understood the reason for his question but didn't know how to answer it. She looked to Octavia for help. How could you explain Ark culture to someone who hadn't grow up with it? Belatedly, she remembered that Octavia hadn't, not really. The only one here who carried the rules of the Ark was her, and they'd never served her well. 

She looked again at the man, ignoring this time his masses of hair and the tattoo on his face to see the genuine curiosity in his expression. He looked eager for answer, ready to try to understand her. It wasn't the way boys her age from the Ark looked at her. Maybe it was time to adjust. Again. She felt her throat constrict. 

If they were still on the Ark she wouldn't have been allowed to date him. He was too old and from a different section. She wasn't sure if it was a better or worse section than hers. Just different. 

He was from a place where her mother was a helper instead of a con artist. 

"I think... I want..." Words failed her, but then the rules had failed her, too, too many times to count. She'd obeyed her mother and gone to jail and then Earth for it. She'd obeyed Clarke and been captured by the Mountain Men. She'd obeyed the Mountain Men and they'd tried to harvest her. She was used to fear, had lived with it most of her life, but now panic froze her. 

Nyko took out his knife and quickly gathered a cluster of stems, slicing them close to the ground and then handing her the rough bouquet of purple flowers. "Breathe deeply through your nose. It's lavender. Calming. Slow breaths. There's no rush." 

She met his eyes. They were the blue of the sky, kind and patient, and his voice was deep and steady. 

"No rush," he promised. "Just breathe."

"We make the rules here," she answered, parroting Bellamy from those first few days on Earth. She'd felt safe then, briefly, and Bellamy was the one who'd come to save her in the Mountain. Maybe his words still held up when everything else had failed. 

Nyko nodded. "No rush."

**Author's Note:**

> Un'beta'd. Comments inspire my ridiculousness.


End file.
